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Technology Stocks
Apple Overtakes Nokia In Revenue
Apple reported yet another stellar quarter this week driven by the momentum of its iPhone which was recently released on the Verizon network. It recently released its iPad 2 and sold every piece it made. Steve Jobs is on medical leave but the company’s products have gathered such good momentum that he is not needed to sustain it.
Commerce A New Strategic Direction For IBM
IBM (NYSE:IBM) this week reported strong results that beat estimates driven by its server business. As a result, it raised its full-year outlook. IBM is also benefiting from its focus on analytics, cloud computing and the Smarter Planet initiative. It announced another new initiative, Smarter Commerce, to address rising customer demand in the increasingly digital commercial world.
Google On Hiring, Acquisition, And R&D Spree
According to the Advertising Bureau, Internet advertising increased 15% last year to $26 billion, compared with a 3% decline in 2009. The report found that the top 10 online ad companies contributed to 75% of all business in the last quarter of 2010. Search advertising, led by Google, accounted for $3.3 billion revenues in the last quarter and contributed 46% of total Web ad revenues for the year. Search advertising grew 12% over the year. Display ads contributed 38% of total Web ad revenues last year. Mobile advertising is also becoming a significant player, with revenues estimated to be $550 million to $650 million for the year.
BitTorrent Trying To Improve Image Through Content Partnerships
Peer-to-peer file sharing service BitTorrent announced early in the year that it has more than 100 million monthly users of its two software products—the original BitTorrent Mainline, and µTorrent. Founded in 2004 by Bram Cohen and Ashwin Navin, BitTorrent has raised more than $40 million in funding from investors. BitTorrent makes it easy to share and download large files of movies, videos, music, and games online and has oft been accused of facilitating illegal file sharing. However, the company has been making efforts to become a legitimate distribution system.
Akamai Holds Good On Its Promise
Akamai has achieved its target of $1 billion in annual revenue and set itself the goal of achieving annual revenue of $5 billion. Recent results show that Akamai’s media and entertainment revenue has rebounded dramatically. To increase it even more, Akamai has over the past quarter renewed its long-term deals with Netflix and several other top media customers. Netflix accounts for about 20% of peak U.S. Internet traffic, and this deal augurs well for Akamai.
Accenture Makes Important Acquisitions In Mobile And Automation
Gartner continues to raise its estimates of worldwide IT spending. Its latest report forecasts 2011 spending to increase 5.6% over the year to $3.6 trillion. The inclusion of handheld tablet devices to the computing hardware category has helped increase the forecast. Worldwide media tablet spending is projected to grow to $29.4 billion in the year from the $9.6 billion reported last year. Computing hardware spending is expected to grow 9.5% over the year to $409 billion followed by 7.6% growth in enterprise software to $255 billion. IT services are projected to grow 5% to $824 billion and telecom services are expected to grow 4.9% to $2.1 trillion. Improved IT enterprise spending is already boosting the financial performance of IT outsourcers.
Job Search Sites Overview – Monster Facing Stiff Competition
Monster’s recently released monthly job index for March showed an 8.8% increase over the year and 5.4% over the previous month. The index saw growth in 14 of the 20 industries and in 17 of the 23 occupations it tracks. This growth was driven by demand for workers in the healthcare support, mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction sectors. Monster’s index for Europe grew 24% in February driven by growth in industrial production related sectors. The Index for India grew 21% over the year, attributed to 45% growth in the retail sector.
Strong And Steady E-Commerce Growth In Latin America
The Internet population in Latin America grew 15% over the year to 112.7 million visitors in January 2011, according to comScore. Brazil was the largest online market in the region and reported 20% growth over the year to 40.5 million users. Venezuela reported the highest growth rate of 27% to 2.9 million users. Mexico’s online population increased 21% to 18.1 million. To put this in context, China’s Internet population is more than 457 million Internet users, making the Chinese market the biggest Internet market in the world. The U.S. is the second-largest market with 207 million users and is followed by India, whose Internet population is estimated at more than 100 million users spending 16 hours a week on the Web. Among other developing markets, the entire African continent is estimated to have close to 111 million Internet users. While the numbers in Latin America are smaller than those of other regions or countries, growth is strong and steady.